This is the class blog for Eng 1102 at GA Tech called "Fiction, Human Rights, and Social Responsibility." The purpose of this blog is to extend our discussion beyond the classroom and to become aware of human rights issues that exist in the world today and how technology has played a role in either solving or aggravating them. Blogs will be a paragraph long (250 words) and students will contribute once every three weeks according to class number. Entries must be posted by Friday midnight.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Bangladesh on the Brink

There has been a lot of chaos in Bangladesh. A lawyer who was the chief
prosecutor of the Bosnian war crimes wrote this article. According to this
article, the commotion is due to the outcome of the war in 1971 that pitted the
two Pakistans together. The concept was to split the subcontinent by religion
because India is primarily Hindu and Pakistan is primarily Muslim. This is causing problems within the country against the followers of the two religions. While
the country continues to try to resolve their civil issues, they refuse to accept
help from outsiders.

When reading this article, I thought a lot about the parallels between
this article and Persepolis. There
are a lot of demonstrations, a lot erupting into violence. There is political
unrest on who should come to power, and innocent people are condemned every
day. It’s very disheartening to see people fight over a difference in religious
views. While foreign powers are trying to help Bangladesh, they refuse to receive
help. The government rejects suggestions from the international community and
strictly adheres to legal precedent. I believe that is regressive. While
sticking to culture should be important, I believe that other opinions are
necessary in order to consider multiple views with a possible resolution that
would result in satisfaction to all parties. However, I can see why they would
want to exclude opinions from outsiders; outsiders don’t exactly understand nor
have they grown up in the same circumstances as everyone else in that country.
So, they probably don’t completely understand why the government is taking its
actions that they deem appropriate.